Weekly Resource Roundup – 31/3/2022

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.   

Online events and webinars

Resources and publications

Other

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.  

Student Digital Experience Insights Survey

Aberystwyth University is taking part in the Digital Experience Insights project aiming to explore our students’ experiences of technology.

It allows us to get better insights on how students use technology and benchmark our results against other HE intuitions in our sector. We can then use this information to enhance the student digital experience.  

The Student Digital Insights Survey 2022 is now open until the 18th April.

How can I encourage students to take part?

  • Send an email/ announcement.
  • Post the links in Blackboard.
  • Post the links on social media.

We would appreciate your help in promoting the Digital Insights Survey to all students.

Rob Nash: External Speaker Materials Available

Why is receiving feedback so hard? Screen grab from Rob Nash's talk

On Friday 11 March, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit hosted Dr Rob Nash, a Reader in Psychology from Aston University. Rob is an expert in feedback and ran a workshop looking explicitly at ways in which we can enhance and develop feedback engagement.

A recording of the transmission elements of the session is available on Panopto. You can also view the slides that he used.

For those of you who are interested in further exploring the terrain of feedback, you can take a look at the references that Rob used in his session:

Our next External Speaker event is Dr Mary Davies from Oxford Brookes who’ll be joined by other colleagues to discuss how we can detect potential contract cheating during the marking process. This workshop will be on 20 May 2022, 12:30-13:30. Booking for the session is already open.

A reminder as well that our Call for Proposals for our Annual Learning and Teaching Conference is currently open.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 22/3/2022

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.   

Online events and webinars

Resources and publications

Other

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.  

Call for Proposals: Learning and Teaching Conference 2022

We are now inviting proposals for the 10th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, Monday 12-Wednesday 14 September 2022.

Submit and view the call for proposals online. 

This year’s conference theme, 

Designing the Teaching of Tomorrow: Innovation, Enhancement, and Excellence 

Celebrating 10 years of Aberystwyth University’s Learning and Teaching Conferences

aims to reflect the commitment that AU staff have to enhance the student learning experience.

The main strands of this year’s conference are:

  • Inclusive and sustainable pedagogies 
  • Assessment validity, authentic assessment, and feedback engagement
  • Scaffolding skills across the curriculum and beyond
  • Developing a Bilingual University community
  • Working with students as partners to design learning 
  • Active learning in today’s higher education landscape

Staff, postgraduate teaching assistants, and students are welcome to propose sessions on any topic relating to learning and teaching, especially those that focus on the incorporation and use of technology. Even if your suggestion doesn’t fit a particular strand, other topics are welcome.

We seek to encourage presenters to consider using alternative formats that reflect and suit the content of their sessions. As such, we are not specifying a standardised presentation format.

Please complete this form no later than 27 May 2022.

If you have any questions, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit at lteu@aber.ac.uk.

Vevox Update: March 2022

Screen shot of Vevox poll using LaTex formatting to ask the question:
Determine the nature of the given matrix
2  0  0
1  2  1
0  0  1

With the following options available:

Indefinite
Positive definite
Negative definite
Positive semi-definite

On 21 March Vevox, the University’s polling software, will be having an update with some additional functionality.

We’re really pleased to be able to see some of the developments as they are requests that we have placed to Vevox on behalf of you.

Firstly, for distance learning practitioners and those who want students to undertake self-paced polling, there’s the introduction of self-paced quizzes to the survey tool.

You’ll just need to create a survey and then add a correct answer. Students can do this anonymously or you can choose to identify them.

The Q and A boards are still underused a little here at AU, but there will be the option to tag questions and comments. Will be useful for those of you who are co-delivering a presentation and want to allocate specific questions to a presenter.

Further information on new Vevox functionality can be found on their update blogpost.

We have regular contact with our Vevox account managers. They’ve already assisted in creating bilingual aspects and have reached out to us for further discussion on how this could be developed further. Also, some enhancement requests that we’ve asked for include:

  • Scatter graph of the X Y question
  • An order or sequence based question

A reminder to the mathematicians amongst us that LaTex is available in your question types.

Vevox is not limited to learning and teaching activities. All members of the University can log in and use Vevox. If you’re running a meeting and want to poll attendees, then Vevox could be for you. Check out their recent case studies on how to make meetings interactive with Vevox.

If Vevox is new to you, then we’ve got guidance on our webpages. Vevox runs 15 minute training sessions – sign up onlineWe’re always up to hear about anything innovative you’re doing with Vevox so drop us a line if you’re doing something exciting.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 15/3/2022

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.   

Online events and webinars

Resources and publications

Other

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.  

UKGCE Good Supervisory Practice Framework

A suite of online training sessions on the 5th and 12th April has been added to the LTEU pages for staff working within supervisory roles. Staff are welcome to attend as many sessions in suite as they wish depending on availability: each session is independent.   


Book online:.https://stafftraining.aber.ac.uk/sd/list_courses.php

These sessions are aligned to the UKCGE “Good Supervisory Practice Framework”: more information can be found here.
 
For enquires please contact Dr Maire Gorman, mng2@aber.ac.uk.

Hello

View of Aberystwyth and the sea from the National Library
View of Aberystwyth from the National Library. KGS Aug 2021

Su’mae! I’m Keziah, I joined the LTEU in 2022 as a Support Assistant, so I will be helping out the team in a variety of ways from dealing with enquiries to supporting CPD sessions and the annual Learning and Teaching conference. I first came to Aber in 2012 as an undergraduate with the History and Welsh History department. Having graduated I stayed on to complete an MA, before having a brief interlude in Leicester. Afterwards I was lucky enough to be able to take up a PhD here researching Ceredigion’s early modern history through the use of criminal records in the National Library of Wales.
During my PhD I was given the opportunity to do some teaching within the department and to take part in the TPAU programme. I quickly became passionate about finding new ways to improve teaching in Higher Education, especially the problem-solving aspects of balancing all of the different elements that go into designing a rewarding and engaging programme.
My current areas of interest outside of my research, are learning Welsh and looking at ways in which ideas about leadership training from business and industry can be used in undergraduate teaching to build confidence and initiative in students.
I’m looking forward to supporting staff and students at Aberystwyth in their ongoing development, and meeting new people from around the university.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 8/3/2022

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.   

Online events and webinars

Resources and publications

Other

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.